Friday, January 27, 2017

We are having a full-rosterSame day as Japan update with everything from the Japan V7.04 update going to greater Asia! That has been a great track record kept there of putting the easily-licensed (originals and Namco IPs mostly) on point so far in Red ver.!

Okay we do not have the parts that need the Donder Hiroba (im@s CG ticket prizes and title parts gacha), but that's rightfully applaudable at least.

Next Thursday we're having a small dose of Taiko Team livestream magic, but nevertheless it's going to have quite the content selection to back it up! While this is the link to the future Nicovideo broadcast, its full time schedule is featured after the jump.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

After the reveal of the next Namco Original whose creation was partially teased in tweet form months ago (link), I've been requested by aquabluu to spotlight a song coming from another song-making duo which has teased a future Taiko work last year in the same way.

Thursday, January 19, 2017

While the Team is still standing on their will to deliver new information about the returning collaboration event during mid-February, that doesn't stop them from posting some reminder posts about its content. For that purpose, remember to check back the campiagn's website from today onward for the special video with the dubber of LiPPS idol Syuko Shiomi!

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Unlike other rumor-labeled posts, this one mainly exists for speculation means, as the bit of news that started all the hypothesis-mongering Internet theories is originated by an official press release by the American branch of Bandai Namco. On January 13th, one of the Western branch's press releases was bringing the following title:

Despite the proper body of the press statement being only about the latest home console Dragon Ball game's porting, the mere mention of the localized title of the series as part of that title has already galvanized more than one people around the Internet, with the assumptions of the future Switch Taiko game being aimed to more than one geographical area sprung by the fact of the Taiko no Tatsujin series in press releases being usually relegated to the Japanese branch's officially-released statements. As usual, the only way to find out if this scenario will turn out to be true is to wait...

The press release has been mirrored by videogame website Gamasutra as part of their partnership with the PR-related website GamesPress.

Monday, January 16, 2017

Takeharu Kijima (耒嶋丈晴) has joined the Taiko Team in 2003 (sometime during the production of the 5th main-line arcade) and since then he's been put in charge of the note-charting creation for a wide number of songs (more than 120, according to a Taiko Team interview). As years went by, he coined the Kijikiji (キジキジ) Notecharter Sentai nickname for himself as well as being put in charge of the directing duties for a number of portable Taiko titles. His working portfolio in the team also includes the role of director for the first Wii U title of the series, for which he also curated the official announcements being put in the related Miiverse page under the nick of Kijima (キジマ).

From his charting beginnings with the iconic Soul Calibur II to this day, Takeshi has been seen at work on 8* Oni songs the most, putting a bigger focus on Don/Kat note alternations for handswitching segments and to aim for the creation of an accompaniment scenario that can better project the feelings of the people playing his charts for the songs they love the most.

Kubo Kenichiro (久保賢一朗) joined Bandai Namco as a Taiko Team member in 2006, between the creation of Taiko 8 and PSP's Portable 2. Aside from his glasses and peculiar hairstyle, he's renowned in the Taiko Team for being a fan of idol producing and board games, two traits that earned him some roles in the iDOLM@STER series' development in the following years. One of the more-flexible Taiko Team supervisors, Kubo has taken a wide number of roles since his hiring, both in-series and in general music series talk, with him being credited as the co-composer of several arrangements in Donkey Konga 2, together with the nick-named Jesahm (自営山).

Aside from his plan to make as many surprise cameos as possible during the Taiko Team's livestream sessions, he's a long-time charter that signs his creations under the pen name of Kuboken (くぼけん). While mostly handling songs in the 6-to-8 Oni ballpark, he loves all difficulty ranges in the series without discrimination while weighting the most suitable notechart perks to assign to each, from special combo counters to repeating patterns in different permutations and difficulty spikes in otherwise Full Combo-manageable songs (his favorite quirk!). With the transition to Nicovideo livestreams for the Taiko Team, Kuboken's nickname for his subsequent cameos has been replaced with a more generic Don-Chan (どんちゃん) label, as it turned out that the Japanese video-hosting service treats くぼけん as an NG word for user comment means!

...okay, the New Year's Eve celebrations have already come and gone, but it's nevertheless interesting to spotlight the most recent NYE card from Bandai Namco, as the 2017 version is starring Don-Chan! Being the Chinese Year of the Rooster, the drum buddy is also sporting a suiting outfit to the coming 12-month cycle.

At the bottom of the Japanese Nintendo website page that is dedicated to the upcoming software lineup for the Nintendo Switch (reference link here), it's possible -in fact- to find out that the oh-so-much-familiar Taiko no Tatsujin logo is appearing among the other big names. Also take note that after the press conference reveal of this console being a region-free platform (meaning that all consoles will be able to play titles from any side of the globe regardless of their system's geographical provenience), this upcoming (and still un-named) title for the Switch will most assuredly become the very first home console game in the series that can be played in all major continental areas!

Together with the previously-advertised website launch of the collaboration website for the third Cinderella Girls campaign (which you can reach with this link), here's a complementary Taiko Team blog entry about said website's launch and all you need to know about the event's preparation.

With the rumor of Taiko no Tatsujin strengthening ties with Nintendo with another new game in the works on the brand-spanking-new console, it seems that PlayStation 3 and 4 will stay Don-chan-less for a good while.

Except the time when LittleBigPlanet collaborated with Namco in bringing a series of classic Namco IP into DLC character skins. The quadpedal OddSock can now costume as the also quadpedal Don-chan for (whatever you do in LBP, sorry I do not know).

Did you know? LittleBigPlanet 3 also inherits the series' custom map creation tools. If you have the know-how you can potentially make a mock-up Taiko map there! Heck, maybe the LBP community have already done that already.

The big guessing game that is rumor-mongering about Nintendo's next home console and its software lineup is roaring wild for a while since the announcement of a worldwide presentation slated for this week. Sure enough, we too now have a reason to chime into this hot topic!

From an allegedly-leaked pamphlet for the week-end hands-on Nintendo Switch event that is planned for Japanese audiences, it's possible to spot in the picture above a mention to a Taiko no Tatsujin game for the Nintendo Switch, with its stand being located on the left to the Monster Hunter one (that is the one that has been circled up in the picture above). With rumors of the system itself being a region-free platform, will the incoming news load about the system confirm what potentially is the best-case scenario for Taiko players from both Japan and the rest of the world?

UPDATE 1: Zoomed-in detail. Title rumored to be Taiko no Tatsujin Switch Edition! (太鼓の達人 Switchえでぃしょん！). Official release of playable titles and programming to be available on January 13 after Nintendo Direct presentation on Switch main site. (source)

While Yuji Masubuchi's first Tenkaichi Otogesai contribution has yet to receive an extra difficulty treatment in its homelands, an update that was applied earlier today to the latest models of Sega's maimai series -maimai MURASAKiversion- has added a new playable trial starring the very-much heated Ignis Danse!

Unlike the regular Re:Master modes (of which we also briefly talked about in one of our past Sympho-Neighbours features), this extra mode is being relegated to the brand-new Enkai-ba (宴会場, lit. 'Banquet Hall') mode, where players are called upon to score a minimum hit-note percentage to clear the song with a chart that follows a certain theme. Ignis Danse's hinted theme is pointed out in the game's website as 'Arbitrarily Holding a Score Festival' (勝手にお蔵入り譜面祭), as in this is the first Tenkaichi Otogesai-spawned song to receive the dubbed-by-fans Utage (宴) treatment.

Saturday, January 7, 2017

For the first Song of the Week feature of the year, we have a couple of tracks featuring the Tengu, a figure that was spawn from both Japanese folklore and several religious backgrounds, up to be depicted in several forms through the ages...

The Taiko Team is back in activity for 2017's beginning and as promised, Etou's first course of action is to spread more informations about the incoming 3rd iteration of the Cinderella Girls collaboration.

As the tweet on the top is attesting, three more songs from Idolm@ster-related media will be introduced in the event together with Tulip: S(mile)ING!, Never say never and TOKIMEKI Escalate (TOKIMEKIエスカレート). All three songs are solo idol songs, muck like what has been for the last newcomer trio of iM@S tracks added to Red Version in 2016.

See you next Thursday for another blog entry and the opening of this collaboration event's dedicated website!

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Born on July 26th, Yuji Masubuchi (増渕裕二氏) is one of the series' longest-contributing composers from NAMCO SOUNDS, as well as one of the few figures of the Taiko Team that have both composed songs and created notecharts along the years. Masubuchi joined the Taiko Team during the summer of 2001, and since then he's the sound director for the series' subsequent entries.

Having the phrase 'Seriously Serious' (真面目に不真面目) as his personal motto, the composer joined Namco Bandai in the hopes of being put in charge of idol-sang progressive rock tracks, which ultimately led to the creation of Taiko series' Mika Sato songs as one of his earliest tasks and later on having the opportunity to make several original tracks for the iDOLM@STER series, with Linda AI-CUE often teaming up as the lyricist (or in the case of Namco Original Mekadesu, as the singer himself!). According to a Famitsu interview on issue no.1237, Masubuchi is currently in a supervision position of the Taiko Team, while being himself in a quite flexible frame on his roles for the Taiko series, composing songs for some of the most recent cross-over music games events as well as co-hosting and live performing songs during several Taiko Team livestreams of the past up to become one of the judges of the CreoFUGA-fueled song creation contests for the series.

Masubuchi's passions often intertwine with the Taiko lore and in-joke scenarios in more ways than his progressive rock passion alone, with him being a fan of motorcycles and food (with his favorite dishes being tsukemen noodles and rice curry). The food-loving trait, for example, has been quite the appreciated aspect along the years, with song titles and Taiko Team tweets winking to 'lots of rice curry' due to Masubuchi's will to enjoy his favorite meal at least twice a week! It's also been the topic of the most recent songs of the de series, between eating-based parties and Masubuchi himself enacting the role of Professor Marvy in the inside joke-y audio drama series Audio Deka.

As a notechart creator, Masubuchi's carreer roughly started around the third Taiko arcade's release, generally being put in charge of high-difficulty songs and roughly 90% of the tracks created by himself. Due to Masabuchi being a guitar and drums player, his charts usually follow the instrumental base of the songs charted, often resulting in hybrid cluster formation sequences in different time signatures. Since 2016, Masubuchi is signing his notecharts under the Notecharter Sentai nickname of Masubu・Chuji (マスブ・チュジー), although it's also referenced in other instances as Masubu・Chupi (マスブ・チュピー), such as during the staff roll of the iDOLM@STER MUST SONGS titles.